Apparently, there’s a new lifestyle trend going around that’s taking a page out of France’s book. The “French Sunday” is the ultimate act of self-care—and it’s even simpler than you might realize.
What Is a ‘French Sunday’?
A “French Sunday” is a wholesome lifestyle trend that stresses the importance of unwinding and relaxing in the ways we most crave. In France, Sundays are treated as days of rest and relaxation, as well as family time. Many shops and supermarkets close on this day, encouraging residents and visitors to slow down and enjoy some downtime.
“The French Sunday is this very simple idea: that we can use our time the way we want to, in ways that truly restore us,” says Alex Snider, facilitator at Slow Mindfulness, contributing author for Psychology Today, and author of “Sometimes You Should Be Late: The quiet rebellion of slowing down in a world obsessed with speed” (July 7, 2026). “We don’t have to treat a weekend—or a Sunday—as something we need to optimize or be productive during. We can create our own stories about what ‘time well spent’ means.”
“The French are great at this. They have long, lingering meals. Even in Paris, lunch conversations during the workweek can often be quite spacious,” Snider continues. “And while French families have the same errands that families outside of France have, there’s also a bit more of a permission structure to simply hang out in the park and have long meals with family.”
This is one wellness trend I can wholeheartedly get behind.
How to Host Your Own ‘French Sunday’
Thankfully, hosting your own “French Sunday” doesn’t require money or even much energy. In fact, it’s pretty much letting yourself do whatever you want, even if that’s sleeping the day away without a second thought about work on Monday morning.
“The beautiful part is that it’s all about a story: that we can slow down, reconnect to other people and ourselves, and have that be worth doing,” Snider says. “When someone asks, ‘How was your weekend?’ we don’t need to give them a laundry list of everything we accomplished. We can simply say, ‘It was the weekend I wanted to have. And it was beautiful.’”
(^ Me after staying in bed and binge-watching Pretty Little Liars all weekend.)
“Who among us hasn’t had the sensation that, with all the options and all the things we could be doing on a weekend, we’re somehow wasting it?” Snider asks.
Certainly, most—if not all—of us have felt that way at some point. Seeing as much of the population only gets a few days off from work and other responsibilities each week, it’s no shock we want to spend those days doing what we love/what recharges us.
“But here’s the thing: what matters most isn’t any objective fact about what we did. It’s how we felt about it,” says Snider. “We can be inspired by the French to see that lingering meals, lazy time in a park, curling up with a book…or maybe just curling up for a nap…can all be valuable uses of our time, if we give ourselves permission and honor this time of not doing with as much gravitas as the time of doing and being productive.”
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